How does conflict damage nations health?

This concise and thoughtful essay by MSF, Doctors without Borders, gives an excellent overview of the impact of conflict on health.

It is doubtful that the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, which cost more lives than the First World War combat deaths, would have happened in the way it did without widespread movements of military and civilian populations.

It is undoubtedly true that the food weapon has been used by unscrupulous leaders to starve civilian populations into submission.

The "collateral damage" of military operations on civilian populations would not take place at all but for the military operations themselves. Sadly, the most vulnerable and defenseless victims of collateral damage are children.